Trying to figure out how to re-jigger my budget for next year, and one of the things I'm trying to wrap my head around are the max contributions to my 401k for any given year. 2007 is published everywhere as $15,500 (I'm not old enough for catch-up yet), easy enough. However, what I haven't been able to find is whether or not that includes company matching or profit sharing, or if that's the most I can personally put in regardless of the match.

The questions:1. Does $15,500 include company matching/profit sharing?2. Does a calculator exist that takes your gross income, pre-tax matched percentage, pre-tax non-matched percentage, and company match numbers as inputs, and spits out how much money will go in as the output?

No, that is only the limit on your contributions and only pretax. The after tax limit is usually higher, sometimes up to 25% of base pay.

2. Does a calculator exist that takes your gross income, pre-tax matched percentage, pre-tax non-matched percentage, and company match numbers as inputs, and spits out how much money will go in as the output?

I am not aware of any programs like that, but if you have a spreadsheet program like Excell in Microsoft Office or QuattroPro in Corel's Word Perfect Office, that is an easy spreadsheet to set up.

Most companies will provide statements with a summary of your previous contributions about once per year. But presumably you want something to play with for planning purposes.

The questions:1. Does $15,500 include company matching/profit sharing?

No, the $15,500 does not include employer match

2. Does a calculator exist that takes your gross income, pre-tax matched percentage, pre-tax non-matched percentage, and company match numbers as inputs, and spits out how much money will go in as the output?

Sure, most calculators can do multiplication and/or percentages, so they could do that calculation. The most basic calculator might require 2 separate calculations- one for pre-tax matched and one for pre-tax non-matched (the pre-taxed matched calculation is the same as the company match calculation).